


Nothing to Regret

by goddcoward



Series: i hate you, i love you (i hate that i love you) [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Dimension Travel, M/M, MadaTobi Week 2019, Major Character Undeath, Reincarnation, Sort Of, as much as that pertains to soulmates, im making that tag right fucking now hell yeah, it's literally five months too early. I Dont Care, lmaoooo, that's a good tag cause technically theyre dead but theyre alive, this is how u cope w hyperfixating folks. nonstop fanfiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2019-11-05 16:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17922404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddcoward/pseuds/goddcoward
Summary: Starring SENJU TOBIRAMA as a BLIND NECROMANCER and also kind of a DUMBASS, MATATABI OF THE TWO-TAILS as his ever-pragmatic FAMILIAR, UZUMAKI MITO as a master of the SEALING ARTS, UCHIHA IZUNA as an overworked GRADUATE STUDENT, SENJU HASHIRAMA as the WIZARD PRESIDENT, UCHIHA KAGAMI as a very curious CHILD, several CORPSES in various states of DECOMPOSITION as VICTIMS OF THE DARK ARTS, and UCHIHA MADARA as HIMSELF.tobirama (26, stupid) is a secret necromancer and thanks to some recreational cave-robbing, he accidentally summons canon!madara (30, stupid). a bunch of shit happens





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [moving was a matter of not keeping still](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12732033) by [blackkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat). 
  * Inspired by [Following Dreams (to Doom or Desire)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7290157) by [Hiruma_Musouka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiruma_Musouka/pseuds/Hiruma_Musouka). 



> my first time using capital letters in a fic name it's very scary and new
> 
> yes this is for madatobi week yes madatobi week is in august yes it is currently february
> 
> there's not really much else to say
> 
> except that this is more soulmates and more nibi&tobes and what can i say i love both of those things......its sexy and cool and i like it
> 
> there's nothing new on the face of the earth
> 
> au!madara and canon!tobirama are dead but the main characters are canon!madara and au!tobirama
> 
> canon is still an au but not a completely different universe it's just 'what if tobirama died instead of izuna and he was also blind and there were soulmates'
> 
> all tobiramas and madaras in this fic are soulmates because .................. thats how soulmates work im pretty sure

_Tobirama dies choking on his own breath, blood filling his lungs and his throat, dripping out of his chest and his mouth and everywhere, really._

_His last coherent thought is about how it’s ironic, really, that an illustrious Suiton user such as himself would fall this way. Every time he’s imagined his death – so many, many times, no one lives in the Warring Clans Era without being shocked they’re still alive – he’s imagined something rather similar to this. Izuna is just a name and a face plastered to an amorphous enemy nin who pokes and lashs and gropes and stabs; the manner of his death is not surprising, not at all._

_Tobirama just never thought that it would feel like this, like he’s drowning on dry land, helpless to clear his chest cavity of the continuous outpour of fluid, helpless to do anything as the darkness spreads to overtake his mind and his extremities grow numb._

_Interesting, he notes distantly, how different exsanguination feels when it is himself who is bleeding out instead of an opponent. He wonders if this is what his this is what his enemies have known – a quick, agonizing death, lifeblood pouring out of his throat and slicking the surface of his severed neck._

_He’s trapped in the moment just before his own death, and he wonders where Madara is now._

_He wonders if he ever figured out what took Tobirama years to do. It’s difficult, to discover one’s soulmate when blind, but not impossible, no. If the Bond is not unrequited, it will slowly begin to form when a pair of soulmates is in within a set proximity, and – the beginning of their Bond is there. Broken, malnourished, but very much there._

_After a few tense moments, Tobirama’s head falls off his shoulders, and he finally,_ finally _dies._

The Senju family is famous for being one of those bloodlines that continuously and reliably produces people of unparalleled talent in magic. The volume of power contained within a single young Senju child is, on average, greater than that of a fully grown, fully trained adult. Blood doesn’t matter, not technically, when taking into account any individual’s magical talent, but it is an undeniable fact that like the Uchiha, like the Uzumaki, like all of the other elder families, the Senju are, as a rule,  _powerful._

Senju Butsuma knows this – as the current Senju Clan Head, he is notoriously strict about the education and training his relatives receive, and he is unbearably  _proud_  of the noble legacy he has inherited, the very same legacy that his children will inherit, and their children after them.

Apparently, he has forgotten that for every rule, there is almost always an exception that proves it.

Senju Tobirama is four hours old, yet to be named, premature and  _tiny,_  and he’s an albino. The unnatural pink-streaked paleness of him looks sickly and weak when juxtaposed against the healthy dark brown of almost every other Senju. That’s not ideal, thinks Butsuma, but it’s alright; it’s not like there haven’t been other famous wizards with biological quirks, after all. Hashirama is a prime example of this: he has no  _genetic_  weakness, per se, making him the way he is, but he is a very,  _very_  strange little boy. He – the baby - is also blind; hmm, thinks Butsuma, that’s troublesome, but ultimately acceptable. Even if he’s not a born sensor the infant can be trained in perception, and there is no reason he shouldn’t be just as strong as his forebears.

“Ah, sir,” says the nurse, gently wiping blood off of the baby’s soft, small head, “it would be… _unwise_ …to plan on your son pursuing any career in magic. He – he doesn’t seem to have any, and we’ll have to run some more tests to be certain, but he doesn’t react to the standardized arcane stimuli in the way he would if he had any sensitivity to the Arts. He’ll need support, but other than all that he’s perfectly healthy, and – sir?” 

The nurse looks up from Mrs. Senju and the baby she’s cradling in her sleep, but he’s too late to stop Butsuma from just leaving the maternity ward, too late to do anything but catch the doors just before they slam, so that the noise doesn’t disturb mother and child.

Butsuma strides out of the hospital and neatly washes his hands of everything to do with his second son, and when he gets home, he’s so quiet and unyielding about the exciting prospect of a new baby that young Hashirama believes Tobirama is  _dead_  for hours until one of the servants hushes his bawling with the truth.

Not dead, she says, drying his round cheeks, just sick. It might be a while before he can come home with your mother, Hashirama-kun, so make sure you send them lots of blessings and good luck, yes? Oh,  _yes,_  chirps Hashirama, who is a moody child but easy to placate with the right words. He goes back to playing in the greenhouse, and the rest of the day passes uneventfully, with Butsuma making many quiet, covert phone calls in his office and Hashirama getting so much dirt and grass all over him that he has to survive three whole baths before he’s clean again.

In the hospital, the new baby Senju is placed in the NICU and intubated so that he can breathe easier. His mother seizes once, twice, and regains her lucidity long enough to name her son  _Tobirama_  before she dies of sepsis. The nurses and doctors are solemn; it’s never a happy day when they lose two patients at once, but no kind of magic in the world can prevent death and keep the soul bound to the body.

 _Two_  patients.

It isn’t expected for Senju Tobirama to live to see his second day, not as small and fragile and at-risk as he is. It’s heartbreaking, but even with the OB/GYN department running as much magical interference as is safe on an infant so new and premature, there is likely no way for them to save him.

He doesn’t live. He’s died several times already – when the heart stops beating, the body doesn’t immediately give out, but there were a few times when the overworked nurses were a little too late, a little too clumsy, and he really did die. 

A sad occurrence, but not really unexpected. The OB/GYN department would grieve, but infants this young can’t be treated with magic, and there was little hope for him in the first place. 

He flatlines thrice in the early hours of the morning, but he  _survives._  He comes terrifyingly close to death time after time after time, but this baby boy is the most impossibly stubborn little shit the surgical interns have ever  _seen,_  and despite his seeming delicacy, he beats the odds. He  _lives._  

They do not recognize the coils and vessels and systematic pathways embedded deep within him. They do not realize there’s anything there at all; the arcane signature of his unnaturally highly-developed Vitality is masked by the presence of proper veins, and it won’t be detectable at all until the boy tries to channel that power actively for the first time, something he’s obviously far too young and weak to do.

The old Tobirama - the one who died on the sword of Uchiha Izuna, the one who never got to the Pure Lands because his soul is being recycled into the tiny, breakable body of another version of himself – would take one look at the child and immediately notice what he would identify as _chakra coils,_ a finely built, delicately balanced system that generates and stores supernatural energy for later use. 

The old Tobirama would recognize the power that saturates the beings of all those who bear the Gift – most people, in this world – but he couldn’t put a name to the strange, foreign way their bodies just _contain_ the force he called chakra. Instead of being neatly circulated through its own specialized body system, the _magic_ here just…exists, saturating every cell of every being and akin to blood in the way it’s prone to spilling out through cuts.

This is one of two remarkable things about the otherwise unremarkable individual who grows up to be Senju Tobirama. The other is his extremely rare ability to channel energy in spells from all eight schools of magic, and it aligns with his even rarer predilection for necromancy, the only categorization of magic that is completely and utterly illegal in all its forms. The entirety of the Dark Arts belong to that classification of spells and other such expressions of magic that are powerful enough or clever enough to alter the fundamental laws of reality; to maintain the peace and balance of not only society but the known universe, they are all expressly forbidden and still punishable by the kind of cruel, medieval death sentences that stopped being relevant in the 1800s.

That being said, there is very little knowledge about necromancy available to – well, _anyone,_ really, and so the hospital staff do not recognize it when it happens right under their noses.

It isn’t Fate Itself that saves the life of Senju Tobirama in the earliest weeks of his existence; it is his own power, his own unnatural affinity for manipulating the energies of life and death, that keeps his small heart beating and his fragile chest rising and falling with his breathing.

He lives to see a week, then two weeks, then a month, then three months, and before they know it the rotations of doctors and nurses who have cared for this tiny little being since his birth not so long ago are sending him home with his family and discreetly wiping away tears at the sheer exuberance his elder brother radiates at finally having him back.

Two thousand miles away in the heart of Rai no Kuni’s stormlands, the shinigami called _Matatabi_ is deep in hibernation. She has no bond to baby Tobirama, not yet – he’s just a baby – but the fluctuations of his life force make her shift a little in her sleep and paint her dreams in red and white.

At the ancestral Senju home, Senju Hashirama plays with his new baby brother, mindful of Tobirama’s delicacy and sensitivity. Despite his blindness, despite his lack of powers, his young otouto seems to delight in the way Hashirama can sing to the plants and make them _grow._

A bond between brothers is born; a bijuu slumbers; years pass in relative peace, and the world spins on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gonna hulk fucking smash i accidentally reloaded the page just when i was about to upload the chapter and now im having to do it all over again HHHHHHHH
> 
> anyway double update double update double update. im a littel ugly goblin and i CANNOT be stopped..........i will not wait i will not be patient............i have The Content and so i shall Post
> 
> this takes place 26 years after chapter 1 so tobirama is..........26 years old. mito isn't in this chapter but she's 23, hashirama is 30, touka is 27, izuna is stupid, kagami is 6

Winter is coming, and the Mountain’s Graveyard is quickly becoming unforgivably inhospitable.

Tobirama is very much regretting his poor timing; although there was no conceivable way for him to hasten the process of deciphering the Naka Shrine’s sekihi, and therefore no way for him to require the information that led him here any earlier than he did, he could have waited. It was not _necessary_ for him to decide that late October was the perfect time for a hike in the mountainous wilds of Tetsu no Kuni, but he’d been so excited for this project and had already told Hashirama he’d be going out of town before he actually made the plans.

If he’d changed his timing all of a sudden for no specific reason – why on Earth would _snowstorms_ possibly keep him from having a relaxing week in southern Tea Country? – Anija might have demanded an _explanation_ , and Tobirama would rather die of frostbite than risk accidentally revealing the real reason he needed to leave Konoha.

The Gedō Mazō is buried deep within the heart of the abandoned mineshafts that used to bring this locale prosperity and fame; mineshafts that were rapidly abandoned as soon as it became clear that the seams of precious metals and rare ores and the deposits of gemstones were not located there in some unbelievable stroke of luck, but because of the aura of death that saturates the cave system. In the modern era, most people know better than to let superstition override the truth about magic and how it affects its surroundings, but it’s still said that the massive wells of necrotic magic that live deep within the mountains are what caused such a promising young city to die so quickly and so violently. It’s still said that the vicious storms that plague this region are a warning from the gods, a natural buffer against any fool so proud as to ignore common sense and history. It’s still said that the aura of death that exists here is why these mountain slopes in particular are so bare and cold.

Tobirama, of course, has heard all these rumors, and decided that this corpse of a mining town would be a _fantastic_ place to take his semester break.

Well, that’s not all of it, but if Hashirama _does_ find out somehow about his true destination, that’s what he’ll use as his excuse, if he can manage to get out an excuse underneath all of the yelling and hugging and crying that will inevitably result from his anija learning about any situation where he might have been in some kind of danger.

Escaping the house they share may or may not have been yet another motivation to drive Tobirama so far north in such deadly conditions – his beloved Familiar is a creature native to snowy, treacherous peaks such as these, after all, and with her at his side he’s in very little peril at all.

“Stop trying to use me to justify your lawbreaking, Senju,” Matatabi snaps at him, right on cue. “You _know_ this is stupid and reckless and dangerous and you’re going because there’s no one who actually knows that you should be stopped, and it is a miracle that shit like this happens day after day after day without _someone_ discovering you. You’re lucky Hashirama is such a powerful wizard, you know, or else his magic wouldn’t cover yours up enough for you to hide it properly.”

“I do know that,” he says crossly, because an argument with her is just what he needed while trying not to fall to his death, suspended hundreds of meters in the air and clinging to an icy cliff face that he can’t actually see. “Just like you know this is the only thing we’ve found in _years_ that may unlock the secret to true resurrection, true return from death, or even time travel, Matatabi. If the rumors are true this statue holds the power to do almost _anything_ we could possibly want, and I don’t need to keep the damn thing in my basement; just a shard of it should supply me with enough of its energy to fuel my experiments for months if not years.”

“Hmnng. Okay, brat, but still. The Gedō Mazō is not to be trifled with, and I’m sure you know that already, but seriously – once you do this, there is _no backing out_. Ever. Take what artifacts it will permit you to, but give it proper respect or you’ll meet the same fate that the poor human saps who used to live here did. Oh, watch out, the footing’s about to get worse.”

Tobirama curses but throws himself further into the snowy rock just as his boot meets thin air; he manages to hang on and make it across the gap, though, just like he has several times already. With Matatabi serving as his eyes and his natural sensor’s sight, there’s very little out here he could miss. They’re still half a day’s travel from the statue and already it blinds him with its ancient, terrible power – only decades of exposure to the darkest pits of the Forbidden Arts allows him to keep himself upright, and Matatabi’s immunity to its energy is only due to her technical status as an undead being.

Necromancy is the worst kind of illegal – the caliber of crime that immediately guarantees execution, extenuating circumstances included – but Tobirama is the best of the best, and it shows. Were he any less adept with black magic, he would long since be dead. The latent energy of the Gedō Mazō kills any living being who isn’t strong enough to withstand the force of it, and Tobirama’s continued survival is proof enough that he’s not making a mistake in going to such lengths for impossibilities.

Having the Nibi at his side is a guarantee of their bond between summoner and familiar, and Matatabi is by far the strongest of her kind, more than powerful enough to earn the title of _bijuu_ , one of nine creatures in existence strong enough to transcend the rank of yōkai and gain recognition as a legitimate kami.

Matatabi deals in death and is feared across the world as a true shinigami – only the nebulous nature of legends and parables protect her true identity, and it’s easy enough for her to suppress her presence and playact as a real bakeneko. The number of people who know who she is, who know _why_ , precisely, she is so significant, can fit on one hand, and none of them are aware of the actual role she plays in Tobirama’s life. Hashirama was the one to connect them in the first place and he still thinks of her as nothing more than a glorified service animal, a companion strong enough to easily protect his poor helpless brother from any threat he may face.

Hashirama would _faint_ if he knew, Tobirama thinks, amused. He doesn’t generally like to imagine what would happen if Anija realized that he really did possess the arcane gifts, was easily strong enough to rival to God of Sorcery himself, and continuously lied about his studies so he could break all moral and legal code to defile the sanctity of death.

He already spends enough time thinking about that, awake late at night in his bed, wondering if Anija really would do his duty as the Fire Kage and kill him if the truth ever came out. No, it’s much, much safer just to be Senju Tobirama, blind and defenseless and drowning in student debt. Two of those things are still true, but the addition of _secret wizard_ would probably blow minds, not to mention _necromancer_.

By the time Tobirama reaches the tunnels his legs are screaming and he’s both too hot and too cold. Matatabi does him the favor of evaporating his sweat with her cool, dry flames – if it froze on his skin there would be nothing in the world that could save him from dying.

Nothing except, perhaps, the power of the Gedō statue; nothing except the power to defy every law of nature and blur the concrete, impermeable boundaries that exist between the living and the dead.

The humidity and the thickening haze of magic are the only things indicating his closeness. The darkness is omnipresent – albinism comes with many unfortunate symptoms, but blindness is far from the least convenient of them, especially in times like this. Tobirama’s utter lack of vision means he’s adjusted to the blackness that swallows him whole as he approaches the statue, and only the unnatural weight of the cold, dry air gives away the truth.

Before him, the Gedō Mazō stretches near into infinity in his mind’s eye, limned in blistering purple-black and glowing with such painful intensity that he’s struck by the absurd urge to close his eyes and rub at them, to keep out the light that isn’t there. It’s only his magic-sense, confirming what he’d genuinely thought to be rumors and superstitions, but…it’s true. The statue is real; he’s traveled a week to arrive here and he is _not_ disappointed by the results.

Matatabi is utterly silent, her paws noiseless on the rough stone floor. She’s unusually solemn – although she is unaffected by the statue’s necrotic aura, she dislikes it all the same, and her bijuu-senses warn her away from it – it seems to set off invisible alarms that scream about an unknowable danger, and there’s no way she’s wrong.

This thing is so fucking _creepy_. It’s a massive, withered, husk of a being, a dead body so enormous that it only fits in the cave because of how its limbs are twisted into a macabre imitation of a Sokushinbutsu. Casting out his awareness to cover the entire room, Tobirama has to wonder if this being is what inspired the practice of self-mummification in the first place.

It’s beautiful and terrible all at once, and when he walks close enough to touch it, its gravity forces him to his knees and draws him closer as it simultaneously pushes him away. It’s physically impossible for an object this size to exert a gravitational field powerful enough to be noticed by human senses, but magic warps reality in the strangest of ways, and over two decades spent practically marinating in it has taught Tobirama to trust in the possibility of the impossible.

Cradled within its hands are two things he can’t quite discern through the overwhelming aura of the Gedō Mazō itself, but just as he’s about to force himself closer for a better examination, it moves. Noiselessly and elegantly the strange, enormous creature brings its hands down, down, down, and soon enough they’re lowered to form a platform.

Matatabi lashes her tails and hisses out a warning, but Tobirama is possessed by some recklessness he’s never known before, and he steps into the embrace of its seemingly empty giant palms and manfully ignores his growing migraine as it brings him right up next to his face.

Tobirama’s magic-sense is unparalleled by anyone in his family – unparalleled by any in _Konoha_ – but he can’t see anything past the eclipsing blaze of the statue’s strange Vitality, can’t register anything other than the booming heartbeat that pulses through its decaying form.

He’s completely immobilized by an energy he couldn’t hope to fathom, and just as the Gedō Mazō cranes its behemoth head and spits out the scroll that’s gagging it, he blacks out, body unable to bear continued exposure to the life signature of what cannot possibly be anything but a _god_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know whats happening but everyone is saying 'oh molly how could you do that' and i think........my dog molly May be in some amount of Trouble as she is wont to be at literally all hours of the day i mean she is just such a bad little dog.......i love her
> 
> the Gift, Vitality, magic + chakra are all the exact same thing thanks to the power of ~synonyms~
> 
> tobirama is a grad student he's going for all of the degrees n currently writing his phd


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> setting this up to post on the nineteenth so we'll see how this goes
> 
> no funney notes this time cause im still doin Real Bad but i already had this chapter written and posting is some kind of behavioral activation which is, and this is true, good for people w depression according to nicole the therapist
> 
> ok it failed so im just gonna post a new chap for this on the first of every month. there that's a good schedule
> 
> see yall in april space cowboys

Of course, that entire scene is nowhere _near_ as alarming as Tobirama waking up in his bedroom at _home_ , Matatabi curled into the covers by his side as she always is and his head throbbing under the stabbing pain of the worst migraine he’s had in actual _years._ He remembers nothing but pre-winter storms, a horribly twisted not-Buddha, magical energy unlike anything he’s ever felt before—

Through the Hiraishin marker in his basement, Tobirama can feel an echo of that same energy.

He’s never moved so fast in his _life._

He doesn’t even spare a moment to consider whether or not Hashirama and Mito are home – they are – before he explodes through the locked warp gate into his hidden laboratories.

Sitting on one of the long, immaculately clean tables, is a strange little sapling that looks like a zombified stick and radiates death magic. Leaning against the cabinets on the far end of the wall is the energy signature of – is that a _gunbai?_ What the hell is one of _those_ doing here? – and locked safely in the cabinets themselves is the Gedō statue’s scroll, reduced in size so it can fit within the storage space and wreathed in its aura of demise.

Matatabi bursts in on his heels, her pelt blazing high with alarm, and she nearly screeches when she notices the new additions to their setup – additions that _hadn’t been there_ when they left, that he’s certain he never placed here.

“Okay, what the _fuck,_ ” is Matatabi’s immediate reaction, and Tobirama can’t do anything but mumble out an agreement. “It was weird enough that the fucking statue somehow keyed into your Hiraishin network and teleported us back home – _thanks_ for passing out, by the way, I had to explain that to Hashirama and now he thinks you’re an alcoholic—” “Wait, he thinks I’m _what?_ Matatabi!” “—shut up, nerd, it saved your ass from being exposed, but _this?_ How could it even reach this place, Tobirama, it’s calibrated to our energy and our energy alone! There’s not a single being who isn’t us capable of accessing this dimension!”

“Hnmmng,” Tobirama says, running one hand through his tangled bangs and very much wishing he could have gotten at least a little more sleep before being exposed to such high levels of _nonsense._ “It probably used our energy, then. What – what was the point of it just _giving_ us these things? I mean, I can get the sapling, it appears to be a sample of the statue’s power manifested as some kind of horrible little plant goblin, I can get the scroll – oh, I hope it doesn’t burn my eyes out or kill me or anything when I read it – but a _gunbai?_ Why did it just leave me a _war fan_ for – for _no reason?_ ” 

Matatabi saunters past him with feline grace, the blue-black of her fur burning in Tobirama’s mind’s eye. “Maybe it was a present. We deserve a souvenir, don’t you think, coming all that way to see it? I can’t imagine that Sage-awful statue gets many visitors.” 

He approaches the gunbai, frowning at the odd familiarity of the energy it radiates and running one finger lightly down its giant, curved side. The blade is so sharp that he doesn’t noticed that it’s cut him until he draws his hand away and scents blood – there isn’t even a sting, and Tobirama marvels at what kind of delicate care went into creating and maintaining this fearsome weapon.

Matatabi’s aura flickers strong and heady with her disapproval, and although he’s not really listening, he can vaguely hear her making some kind of derogatory comment about his situational awareness, which may not be _entirely_ unfounded.

Tobirama ignores that, much to her disdain. “Perhaps it’s a remnant or an artifact of some sort. It’s possible this belonged to one of the people who used to live in the Mountain’s Graveyard, but it still beats me why the Gedō Mazō would just _give_ it to us. I don’t like it.” 

“Well, neither do I, but we have to go, _now,_ since we’ll both like it a lot _less_ if Hashirama finds out, and he’s on his way.”

Tobirama just barely manages to get the both of them back through the portal and cover it up with a rug before Hashirama runs into the basement, his magic high and frantic and his energy signature wild.

“Tobira! Oh, my god, Tobira, what are you _doing,_ you weirdo, are you still hungover? Why are you in the basement? Why do you – Tobirama. _Tobirama._ ”

Tobirama crouches down to scoop Matatabi up into his arms and card his fingers through her ethereal fur. Hopefully the sight of him cuddling with his seeing-eye cat will be enough to soothe whatever rage Anija has worked himself up into now, but the anger keeps _building,_ and soon the killing intent is overwhelming his still-fragile constitution, and he can’t keep himself from wincing. That’s…probably not a bad thing, though, considering Matatabi’s hangover excuse. 

“Tobirama,” says Hashirama, his voice deep and gravelly and so unnaturally _serious,_ “face me. Tobirama?”

“Oh, my god, _what,_ ” he hisses in response. “Yes, you know my name, you’ve said it a _million times_ already, what is the fucking _problem,_ Anija? I must have been sleepwalking or something and I _don’t_ appreciate you getting on my ass about it. It was one time, yeah? Are you gonna let me go back to bed or are you going to interrogate me about every drink I’ve had in my life?” 

Thankfully, the sharp edge of his tone and the bluster of his lies are enough to cut through just a little bit of Hashirama’s unsettling gravity, and he flops down just a little bit. “Ahwww, Tobes, I was _worried,_ you know! Must have been seeing things, that’s all, haha! Maybe we _both_ need to lay off the shōchu…come on now, otouto, do me a favor and let your anija walk you back up to bed. I don’t want you to trip and hurt yourself! I get _scared,_ you know, just – just humor me, will you?” 

Tobirama suffers the indignity of allowing Hashirama to escort him back upstairs to his room and he doesn’t even point out how Matatabi is literally _right there_ and snark at him about going to lengths to get him a contract with a _bijuu_ and then not even letting her do her job.

It takes two hours and half a bottle of sake for Hashirama to return to bed and fall asleep, and once the coast is clear, Matatabi creeps up to his head and hisses in his ear.

“You smell like death magic, kitten. Hashirama – he _knows._ You weren’t careful enough. _We_ weren’t careful enough.”

Tobirama’s blood freezes in his veins and it’s all he can do to keep a leash on his magic, to keep the room temperature from dipping below zero. It’s – impossible, but…

It’s _not._ Just _yesterday_ he’d _touched_ the Gedō Mazō, which is quite possibly the single largest anchor of necrotic energy anywhere in the world, and the statue had channeled his magic. It had been in enough contact with him to _send him home._

In the pocket dimension in the basement, Tobirama’s blood – barely a drop, but _enough_ – trickles down the blade of the gunbai, staining its gleaming metal a deep liquid red and bringing to life the seals and locks engraved on its surface.

This is not the first time this particular weapon has seen human blood, but it had never thought that it would do so again; this particular weapon should not exist at all, and its presence in this world is very much _wrong._  

Uchiha Madara is dead. Has been for years – he’d perished in a fire along with three of his siblings some time ago, and it _broke_ Hashirama, shattered him so thoroughly that it’s a miracle Tobirama was able to reconstruct him into some semblance of functional. Tobirama himself didn’t grieve, not when he’d never known the man beyond ‘Hashirama’s friend and one-sided crush’, and he's fairly certain they never so much as looked each other in the eyes.

Uchiha Madara is _not dead_. He is, after all, a _ninja_. It would take much, _much_ more than a tragic house fire to extinguish his life – this event will no longer come to pass, but it would have taken the full force of Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi himself, to defeat him. It would have taken the Sage reborn to bring him low enough to die.

He defies the possible, and he _lives._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd say im sorry for not updating but really im not because i just wrote this in like two hours and it's so fucking good and yall are gonna HATE me for it :-)

Izuna’s wedding is an extravagant affair to put all others to shame.

His montsuki is all sleek dark silk and embroidered uchiwa, his hair is braided up into a topknot and secured with golden kanzashi clips for the occasion, his Sharingan are burning as he watches Jirō walk his bride down the aisle.

Madara is not particularly inclined to appreciate the female figure, but he has to admit, Yui is gorgeous. Radiant in her shiromuku, she stalks down to her groom with all the grace and deadliness of a tigress, her lifetime of experience as a kunoichi evident in her every movement. The tsuno-kakushi shades the top half of her face, but her painted red lips are pulled into a shy smile that broadens to show her teeth as she approaches Izuna. 

They are the very picture of a perfect soulmate pair, two Uchiha with one heart, one mind, one soul to share between them, and although Madara, standing by the altar in his place of prominence as their Clan Head and Izuna’s elder brother, is endlessly glad for them, his joy is hollow as he watches them flirt with their Sharingan, eyes following each other and only meeting for bare seconds at a time before they glance away again to begin the dance anew. 

He doesn’t press his lips together – his bangs are pulled back from his face, and his every expression is easily visible, especially given all the Sharingan eyes shining red in the attending audience – instead keeping his face molded into a perfect mask of fraternal delight. It’s not a lie, not quite; he really is happy for them, practically ecstatic that Izuna’s finally found his One, the person for whom he was made and who was made for him in return, the love of his life and partner for eternity. 

It’s just that Madara will never get the chance to know that same happiness. Madara’s soulmate is considered _worse_ than the Shinigami by his family, his Clan, the people he loves and respects and fights for day after day after day in this exhausting, endless war. Madara’s soulmate doesn’t even have a soul. Madara’s soulmate is incapable of returning his love at all, incapable of _feeling_ love in the first place, incapable of, well, _everything_ required to make a relationship work.

He still wants him, still desires him, still lays awake at night thinking about how it would feel to have his body pressed against another’s, is brooding about him at his little brother’s wedding, for Sage’s sake, but—

Yui reaches the altar, and he snaps his attention back to the event. It would be unspeakably rude for him to zone out during the marriage ceremony.

Her fingers brush Izuna’s as they reach for the sake cup, giggling when it nearly spills all over their horrifically expensive wedding wear, smirking at each other as they take turns sipping. 

Madara loves them both, he really does, but they are _not subtle_ and he’s very much not looking forward to having to sleep in the same house as them tonight.

The ceremony is short but poignant, and once they share a ten-minute kiss that no one was willing to interrupt or get in the middle of, they’re officially married.

They’re so gross and affectionate that it makes Madara’s heart ache watching them. He’ll never have that opportunity, not with _his_ One, and it’s wrong to be jealous, bad luck to be in a green mood at a weeding…

He’d look so gorgeous in a hikifurisode like Yui’s, though, black and embroidered with metallic threads in silver and gold, plastered with elaborate designs of cranes and pine trees and dragons and phoenixes, all representing longevity and love, auspicious symbolism for the happy couple.

And underneath…

“Aniki!” Izuna screeches, just in time to keep him from _fantasizing_ in the middle of a _reception_. “Aniki, come with us! Auntie wants a memory of us standing with you!”

Ever since the technique of memory preservation and storage was invented some centuries ago, Uchiha have been using their Sharingan to record momentous events; childbirth, weddings, funerals, first meetings between Bonded soulmate pairs. It only makes sense that old Auntie would want one of the brothers Uchiha with Yui, but he can’t help but feel disgruntled as he allows Izuna to drag him over to his bride so that he can pose and smile and pretend not to be awkward when they get so caught up in each other that they forget about the rest of the world.

Gods, he wishes he could have that _so much._

The party is one for the ages. Izuna gets so drunk that he starts believing he’s a dragon, wandering around spitting fire into the sky with a giggling Yui by his side, Uncle Kyoko literally breaks a hip trying to dance, and Madara himself is the bachelor of the hour, constantly tailed by men and women alike hoping for a moment alone with him.

He’s only got moments alone to spare for one person, though, one person who certainly wouldn’t be in attendance tonight, so he gently rebuffs their attentions and drinks so much sake that he can feel the alcohol swishing around his stomach. The lights and the music stay on until well after the sun rises the day after the actual ceremony, but he beats a quick retreat to the Clan Head’s home after the feast, not wanting to get caught up in a situation where Yui and Izuna make it back before he does and decide that the walk to their consummation bed is too long to bother with.

Of course, given his luck, that’s exactly what happens, and Madara gets an eyeful of his sister-in-law’s breasts as soon as he slides open the doors.

Yui is not a shy woman, and she just laughs at his blushing, squirming a little further out of her hikifurisode and pressing herself closer to Izuna.

“Look, husband, your brother’s come to have some fun! Care to join us, Madara-sama? _I_ certainly wouldn’t mind.”

“ _I_ would!” Izuna squawks, affronted, embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as Madara, who just stands there, insensate, eyes glued to Yui’s chest and physically unable to look away.

Thank the gods for Izuna, who carries his wife back to their bedroom with a red-and-black glare at Madara for being a lecher, never mind the fact that he’s _gay,_ and then he’s left alone in the main part of the house.

He could go to sleep, but the war is still raging, and even one night away from its claws is too much to ask for. There’s strategizing to be done, supplies to purchase and arrange trades for, Senju patrols to scare away from their borders. Hashirama’s people won’t stop just because Izuna got married, so Madara can’t afford to either.

He doesn’t end up getting anything done, though, so he retreats to his bedroom, ignoring the obscene sounds of Izuna and his new wife – apparently Yui _really_ knows her way around a strap-on, not that Madara ever wanted to know that – and stripping off his formal wear for a thin, worn sleep yukata.

He falls unconscious in moments and dreams of Senju Tobirama.

_In another world, a better world, a world where his One could reciprocate his feelings, a world with no war, no blood feud, nothing standing in between their families but a companionable rivalry, Tobirama says yes, and the planning commences._

_It’s the most exhausting thing Madara’s ever had to endure, even counting old man Tajima’s idea of training, but it’s worth it, worth it for the way his love delights in all the bullshit he gets to organize, all the orders he gets to give, all the decisions he gets to make, worth it for the way that Tobirama will look at him with a sultry, steamy promise in his eyes, worth it for the sight of him in a shiromuku of his own, pure unbroken white save for the red of his eyes and tattoos, pure unbroken loveliness._

_Unlike Izuna, Madara knows what he wants and is impatient about it, so as soon as they’re officially married, sake drunk and rings exchanged and kiss completed, he throws his new husband over his shoulder to the sounds of raunchy shouting from his Clanmates and Hashirama’s despairing screaming and carries him back to **their** marriage bed._

_Unwrapping him from his dress is like the world’s best, sexiest birthday present, and even better is the truly excessive extent of his tattoos, red ink trailing all the way down his body to places Madara can’t see yet, obscured as they are by white silk._

_Tobirama is a tease, though, and will almost certainly be the death of him, so he takes his time slipping out of the shiromuku, lavishing in the way Madara’s hungry stare follows him across the room to watch him as he arranges himself on their bed, legs parted invitingly, excitement obvious in his pretty pink flush and in other places._

_They make love until they’re both sore and aching in all the right ways, then they shower together and slip into the bath and kiss until the water’s cold, then they finally wriggle up together in the futon, exhausted and elated and finally, finally together._

The next day the celebrations are over and the war continues, and he and Izuna are called out to battle in the forest by the Nakano, where Hashirama meets him with his usual vivacity and where Madara strikes back with vigor, empowered by the fantasies that will never come to be, high on the knowledge that Izuna is safe and happy and—

—Hashirama’s gaze slips past him, eyes going wide with horror, mouth dropping open and voice reaching an unholy pitch as he shrieks, outraged, distraught, grief-stricken. 

Madara doesn’t even have time to turn around before his best friend’s brown hair and brown eyes and brown skin suddenly begin to _fade,_ going grayer and grayer and grayer until all the color is leeched out of Hashirama’s bright visage, the red of his armor gone shiny, inky black, the vibrant green of his Mokuton reduced to a sickly pale gray.

His heart stutters to a stop in his chest, because that could not have possibly just happened. It _couldn’t_ have, Izuna is too good, too kind, and Tobirama too fierce, too powerful, but—

But Izuna has a family to fight for, now, and Tobirama has nothing, nothing because he doesn’t have Madara, nothing because he’ll never _want_ Madara, nothing because soulmates mean as much to him as the lives of his enemies.

The last color he sees before the world goes black-and-white is the gory red of Tobirama’s arterial blood spraying through the air as Izuna’s sword flashes through his neck and his head falls off his shoulders to bounce against the ground, neatly severed in a single blow, the growing pools of dark gray beneath it a sight Madara can’t rip his eyes away from.

**Author's Note:**

> please r&r thank you my crops are dying i am gay i just want happy healthy sometimes not happy mlm content to soothe my aching soul thus: fanfiction


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